As 93% of all online experiences begin with the search engine, no wonder that boosting SEO rankings is becoming the top objective of every thorough online marketing strategy.
Almost 40% of all e-commerce traffic comes from search engine queries, so when it comes to running an e-commerce store, the way a company ranks in the search results is a make-it-or-break-it factor. Still, putting your money into paid ads which can grant you the first-page position won’t do the trick and bring you qualified traffic and profit, as nearly 80% of users will simply ignore them. To really make a difference when it comes to your SEO rankings, you have to give your potential target customers just what they are looking for – great content to keep them engaged throughout their buyer’s journey, and keep them coming back for more.
Here is how to best boost your rankings with content marketing.
Deliver fresh high-quality content
If you want to increase your SEO rankings, focus on the quality of the content you deliver, not its quantity. With search engine algorithms being updated constantly, only relevant, high-quality and distinctive content can make it to the highest positions in Google search results. But how do you ensure the quality of the content you deliver? It is one of the marketing basics, and it has everything to do with your buyer personas and their interests, needs and pain points as well as giving them the value they are searching for. Every piece of the content you provide needs to add value to your target audience, by addressing their needs for entertainment, information, problem-solving, knowledge. Your content needs to give real answers to real questions, a proven working solution for a genuine burning problem, or an entertaining story someone would like to pass along to their private social media circles. If you want to increase your SEO rankings, your content needs to be fresh and regularly updated so it can bring new links to your site, and help your site be perceived as relevant – no matter how good the content is, its value decreases over time and you need to refresh it with new data so that it stays relevant and evergreen.
Use keywords
Even though the Google algorithm moves towards topics-based marketing, trying to close the door to previously used marketing hacks, keywords are still being widely used in order to get higher SEO rankings. The keywords you use must be relevant to the niche you are in, but also ranked well on the SERP, so using a keyword research tool is highly recommended. Keywords should be used both in the title and the text, lat tags, meta tags, as well as the URLs. Still, avoid stuffing your content with keywords, as it will have a negative effect both on your search engine rankings, and your user satisfaction with the content you provide.
Use social media
With almost 3.5 billion users worldwide, using different social media channels is the best way to promote your content and your brand, engage your current and potential customers, boost your rankings, and generate new leads for your business. Sure, you can rely to a certain extent on the organic reach of your social media posts, but if you really want to see the numbers rising, putting some money into advertising your latest high-quality piece of content will boost both your reach and engagement, resulting in better search engine rankings. Also, if you really want to make a difference in your rankings, think about using a social media monitoring tool to get the timely info on the mentions of your brand, so you can give your customers prompt feedback, and provide them with great UX. This way, you can also get details on your users’ overall sentiments towards your brand, as well as the keywords they most often use in their queries, and do a little bit of “spying” on your competitors, using this data for your future marketing efforts.
Optimize for mobile
Mobile is overtaking online traffic, so all your content needs to be optimized in order to boost your rankings. This means you need to:
- Post videos that are compatible with mobile devices;
- Use high-quality images, even when you shrink them;
- Make your content scrollable instead of having multiple pages;
- Avoid long paragraphs and make your content easy to read.
This way, you will avoid high bounce rates and increase your website dwell time, both of which will positively impact your rankings.
Using high-quality content marketing will not only boost your SEO rankings but also help you build brand recognition and awareness, and establish your company as a trustworthy and credible partner for your potential and current customers.